Unveiling of Anti-Communist Memorial
Shameful Memorial with U.S./NATO Anti-Communist Revival of Nazi Collaborators Written All Over It
– Hilary LeBlanc –
The shameful memorial to
honour Nazis and Nazi collaborators was unveiled in Ottawa on
December 12, at 9:00 am, at the Garden of the Provinces and
Territories on Wellington Street. It is reported that Liberal MP
Yvan Baker of Etobicoke Centre was supposed to speak at the
opening, but did not show up. In fact any and all
representatives of the Trudeau Liberal government were pointedly
absent from the unveiling ceremony. Baker later claimed in an
email to CBC News that he did attend a private
ceremony "along with members of Tribute to Liberty, a Canadian
veteran, survivors and representatives of many communities in
Canada," adding, "I have been a longstanding advocate for this
project, and I am proud that the government of Canada provided
$6 million in funding towards this project."
Robert Tmej, a board member of Tribute to Liberty which originally instigated the monument, expressed his disappointment that the Prime Minister "cannot, or chose, not to be here." Omitting to mention why no names are featured on the memorial to begin with, Tribute to Liberty chair Ludwik Klimkowski stated that the names of those being honoured would be added to the site by next year. On this crucial matter, Tmej arrogantly stated: "People who sought refuge in Canada cannot be considered as fascists or Nazis just because either the government or researchers didn't do their job well enough to determine who these people were."
Their statements have been
contradicted by Canadian Heritage. Charles Thibault-Béland,
press secretary to Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge, said in an
email that no specific timeline has been agreed to by the
federal government "as we are still conducting due diligence on
the names." This refers to the fact that the names submitted are
largely those of known Nazis, Waffen SS and Nazi collaborators
who committed crimes against humanity during the Second World
War.
In October 2024, a report prepared by the Department of Canadian Heritage was made public. It recommended that 332 of the 550 names planned to go on the memorial be removed because of their Nazi connections, or because they had no connection to Canada. It pointed out that in 2021, officials from Global Affairs Canada told Canadian Heritage that many anti-communist and anti-Soviet advocates and fighters were also active Nazi collaborators who committed documented massacres.
All the noise about the names serves to divert attention from the fact that it is not just the names which bring infamy, but the monument itself which is the product of Nazi forces brought to the U.S. and Canada, Argentina and other Latin American countries by U.S. and Canadian governments. The brief account found at the end of this article titled History of the World Anti-Communist League 1945-85 makes it abundantly clear that none of the Nazi actors involved are in any way supported by the Canadian people who have always militantly opposed attempts by Canada's political police to float fascist and Nazi groups which incite passions and launch racist and fascist attacks against the people with the support of the state.[1]
Canada's Attempt to Whitewash Its Falsification of History Continues
Canada has gone to great lengths since World War II to cover up that it gave refuge to Nazis and their collaborators after the war. Furthermore, today, it does everything to disinform public opinion about its ties with the neo-Nazis who it helped put into power in Ukraine.
Those involved with the project to erect this anti-communist monument in Ottawa are precisely the reactionary scum given safe haven and used to block social progress after World War II. They make up the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and similar anti-democratic, anti-people organizations, as the history of the WACL confirms. Reducing the matter to a few names and their removal in no way wipes out the black stain that the WACL and their ilk have imposed on the peoples of the world since World War II.
Chrystia Freeland's claims
that information about her close links with Nazi-collaborators
of yesteryear and neo-Nazis of today is Russian disinformation
-- despite the fact that the links are well documented, pictures
and all -- are part and parcel of Canada's attempts to revive
Nazi collaborators.
Discussion is silenced on the role Freeland has played, with Prime Minister Trudeau and all the cartel parties with seats in the Parliament cheerleading at her side, to bring the organization of these Nazis and Nazi-collaborators, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), right into government circles. In fact, many of the Liberals that have given their support for this anti-communist monument but were too cowardly to show their faces at its unveiling, are hailing Freeland as a wonderful leader, giving her standing ovations and even promoting her as a good fit to be Canada's next Prime Minister.
They will surely live to rue the day they gave her standing ovations, just as they regretted giving the proud member of the Waffen SS Yaroslav Hunka standing ovations in the Parliament on September 22, 2023.
So too others from the ranks of official circles, including Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney, Bob Rae, Irwin Cotler, amongst others, were too cowardly to show their faces at this shameful unveiling. This does not stop them from either supporting the U.S./Zionist genocide going on in Gaza or doing nothing to oppose it or to oppose Canada's support for the corrupt Zelensky government in Ukraine taken over by the U.S./NATO-financed neo-Nazis with Canada's full collaboration.
Everything will be revealed in due course, including why it cost $7.5 million to erect this despicable monument, who decided the government could contribute $6 million when the Nazi-loving organization Tribute to Liberty was unable to raise money from Canadians, and what are the political affiliations of the donors Tribute to Liberty did manage to get donations from.
Also to be revealed is the destination of all the public money the government has given the Ukrainian government since the Maidan Coup in 2014 and the period in which it conducted massacres against the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass and the crimes it has committed since then in efforts to isolate and defeat Russia.
Besides the sordid credentials of all those involved with Tribute to Liberty, the government of Canada's "partner" in this shameful venture, a name that frequently crops up in support of the memorial on the basis of the most blatant falsifications of history is that of Marcus Kolga. Kolga is a senior fellow at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) which promotes him as follows:
"Marcus Kolga is an international award winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, digital communications strategist, and a leading Canadian expert on Russian and Central and Eastern European issues. Marcus has a focus on communications and media strategies as tools of foreign policy and defence, and continues to write commentary for national and international media including the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. He is the co-founder and publisher of UpNorth.eu, an online magazine that features analysis and political and cultural news from the Nordic and Baltic region. He frequently comments on Russian, Eastern and Central European issues on North American radio and television and at foreign policy conferences. Marcus is involved with international human rights organizations and national political organizations. In 2008 he spearheaded an effort to make August 23rd, the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a Canadian national day of remembrance for the European victims of Nazism and communism -- Black Ribbon Day -- by drafting a parliamentary resolution that was introduced and passed by Hon. Bob Rae. In 2015, Marcus was awarded the Estonian Order of the White Star by President Toomas Hendrik Ilves."
In a December 12 article published in the Ottawa Citizen, referring to the period of the Second World War, Kolga asserts: "Our collective grasp of European history remains shallow. We too often cling to an oversimplified and chauvinistic Anglo-Saxon narrative of the Second World War, casting the Soviet Union as an ally without acknowledging its joint aggression with Nazi Germany." Kolga goes on to accuse the "Kremlin's propaganda machine" of dehumanizing "Eastern and Central European refugees, portraying them as enemies of Canada" and of falsely claiming "that resisting Soviet colonialism was tantamount to fascism."
In a 2019 article meant to be a rebuttal of a David Pugliese article entitled "Nazi whitewash gathers momentum as memory of the Holocaust fades," Kolga states: "Any attempts to use history and these victims to drive wedges between Canadian communities or to erode trust in Canada's trans-Atlantic relations should be viewed with skepticism. The actions of fringe far-right groups should be strongly condemned, but they are the actions of a few, not entire nations, and should not be used as justification to terminate Canada's participation in NATO's Enhance Forward Presence in Latvia or Operation UNIFIER in Ukraine, as some writers have suggested." Kolga also refers to information about Chrystia Freeland's Nazi grandfather as a "smear campaign targeting Chrystia Freeland for her strong positions on Russia."
Kolga is also credited with leading "the Canadian civil society campaign for Magnitsky sanctions legislation" and continues "to advocate on behalf of human rights victims around the world."[2] He claims to be an expert on "Russian disinformation" and to have helped lead a 2008 effort to make August 23 a National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Nazism and Communism in Europe.
Research partners of the MLI include the U.S. Department of State Global Engagement Center in Washington, DC, the NATO StratCom Center of Excellence in Riga, the Vilnius Institute, the EU Eastern Stratcom/EUvsDisinformation (Brussels) and the Embassy of the United States.
Through a global network of such "partners," the MLI's Disinformation Watch "monitors for mis/disinformation narratives online and on social media, foreign state-sponsored platforms, accounts on social media platforms that share narratives aligned with malign foreign regimes, and third language media in Canada and elsewhere that promote narratives that align with malign foreign regimes."
A U.S./NATO spy network by any other name!
To date, no names have appeared on the anti-communist memorial, but it definitely has U.S./NATO's warmongering anti-communism and anti-Russia campaign written all over it. The presence of this despicable monument, on Wellington Street no less, is an attempt on Canada's part to escape history but it is a black stain on Canada's reputation that it will not be able to wash away.
Notes
1. History of the World Anti-Communist League (Part 1: 1945-85)
2. Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law) S.C. 2017, c. 21
Assented to 2017-10-18, "An Act to provide for the taking of restrictive measures in respect of foreign nationals responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights and to make related amendments to the Special Economic Measures Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act."
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 12 - December 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M5401212.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca